Glossary » joystick

joystick

an input device that consists of a user holding a stick in their hand, where movement of the stick from its central position provides both a direction and a quantity that can be used to control pointer movement or other types of interfaces, such as aircraft control. Joysticks tend to be better for specifying relative movement as opposed to aligning a pointer to an absolute position or tracing paths. A variant, the isometric joystick, doesn’t move, but instead responds to the force applied to it.